


Waiting for John

by LadyNyxRavus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNyxRavus/pseuds/LadyNyxRavus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has worked with NSY for a year and not once has he given any indication that he can even have a friend - let alone a significant other. So when he mentions someone named John, what kind of freakish alien creature must this person be to have an actual RELATIONSHIP with the man?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/12432.html?thread=62503056#t62503056 on the kinkmeme

Sherlock hadn’t been happy about it, of course. John – _his_ John – off in the wide, wide, world alone? Without him? At _war_? He didn’t like it at all. But John had given him that look and of course he’d sulked but in the end John Watson went to war without Sherlock Holmes.

“Just one more month,” John says over the webcam link he’s been allowed. He’s dressed in his uniform and there’s a bit of shaving cream near his ear and he looks so familiar it hurts. “Come on Sherlock, you can wait that long, yeah?”

“No.” He’s sulking. He wants to be able to brush that bit of cream away but he won’t mention it because then John will just look amused and affectionate at his attention to detail and then Sherlock won’t be able to keep his sulk up properly. “I’m going to start smoking.”

“You won’t,” John says and laughs just a little. The screen turns all pixelated for a moment and ruins Sherlock’s brief flare of happiness at hearing his partner’s laughter. “I’ve got to go now, alright? I’ll be home soon.”

“I’ll take up heroin!” he declares loudly when John starts to leave but John just shakes his head and mouths ‘ _I love you too_ ’ and completely ignores his very serious (not at all serious) declaration.

When Lestrade calls him with a case the next day, he’s disturbed to note that he’s less cutting than normal. He agrees without calling the DI any names and only sneers once at Sally Donovan calling him “Freak.”

It’s all John’s fault. If John wasn’t gone he wouldn’t be so ridiculously pleased after a mere ten minute, low-quality video conversation. He makes sure to be excruciatingly cutting when he delivers his findings the next day (the father did it, he’s meticulous about his ties and the stepson was strangled with a _very_ precise knot). Lestrade looks like he’s disappointed but resigned which is the way Sherlock prefers him and he departs to his lonely flat with the neighbours next door who have screaming matches every night at two in the morning.

He cannot wait to move into the flat he’d picked out on Baker Street the moment John returns. He’s thankful that Mrs. Hudson is willing to hold it empty for them.


	2. Lestrade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock first mentions John to Lestrade.

He had hopes that Sherlock was moderating his acerbic behaviour after the way he’d stalked about moodily and ordered people out of the way with perfunctory glares and curt vocal commands. “Here!” “Move!” “Don’t be an idiot.”

But of course it was too good to be true. “Sherlock, you can’t just verbally abuse my entire staff and then _demand_ to be put on this case,” he says in exasperation. The man’s stuffed himself in the chair across from the desk and he’s got his hands stuffed in his pockets and his chin tucked into his scarf. He’s glaring darkly and Greg tries very hard not to sigh; it’ll only provoke him. “There’s nothing to suggest the two suicides are linked and we don’t need your help.”

“You do!” Sherlock snarls. “If you would just learn to accept that you always need me, we could skip this tedious repetition every time you lot get stuck on something so _simple_!”

“I needed you on that triple last month and you refused!”

The Consulting Detective’s face closes off. He doesn’t remember and Greg doesn’t hold back the sigh this time. “Babysitter got jealous and poisoned the whole family, remember?”

“Oh _that_ ,” Sherlock says. “I would have solved it quicker,” he mutters and Greg can hear something like...

“Did you _want_ that case?” he can’t believe that Sherlock wanted the case and refused it. “You said you were busy and couldn’t possibly.”

“I was busy,” Sherlock’s throwing the biggest sulk Lestrade has ever seen him pull in public. “Why did she have to kill them on that night? It’s completely inconsiderate. We had our monthly video-call that night and the army wouldn’t reschedule it when he was due back in a month anyway.”

“What?”

Sherlock isn’t really listening to him. His eyes are faraway and staring at a point roughly to the side of Greg’s face. “John,” he snaps. “Obviously I’m talking about John.”

“Who in the ruddy hell is _John_?”

Sherlock blinks at him and his brow furrows in disgust. “None of your business.” Then he’s flinging himself out of his seat and in the hall with a call over his shoulder to text when Greg’s ready to give in and admit that he’s right and they need his help.

If Greg didn’t know any better, he would have said that John was someone _important_ to Sherlock. But Sherlock hasn’t shown any sign of interest in anyone in the entire year that he’s known the man and he’s fairly certain Sherlock is asexual. So he dismisses the conversation out of hand and returns to his paperwork that the Consultant had so rudely interrupted.


	3. Donovan

The Freak has been in the worst mood for the past few cases and she wants nothing to do with him. When he storms out of Lestrade’s office after practically shouting about someone named ‘John’ she did, however, peer after him curiously.

She’s not as observant as Sherlock-bloody-Holmes, but she deserves her rank. She can tell when someone’s upset. This being the Freak, she would normally let it alone, but for some inexplicable reason she finds herself catching up to him in the elevator and sliding in before the door fully closes.

“Freak.”

“Sergeant Donovan.”

“So who’s John then? You were yelling about him to the Detective Inspector.”

He looks at her as though she’s said something horrible. She raises a single eyebrow and he crosses his arms stubbornly across his chest.

“Just, it sounds like he’s your boyfriend or something,” she goads him deliberately. She expects a cutting remark and one of his stupid tricks designed to grate at her every nerve (and then she’ll be able to go back to her desk and ignore him in _peace_ ). What she gets instead makes her freeze in horror and disbelief.

“He _is_ my ‘boyfriend’ if you want to use that ridiculous moniker.”

“What?”

“John. He’s my partner,” he repeats and there’s a sadistic glee in his eyes as he leans closer to repeat that delightful tidbit of information. “My _romantic_ partner.”

“Piss off,” she snarls and jams the button for the next floor. “Who’d want _you_?”

“John does.”

“You know what I think?” she shoves a finger under his nose and watches him recoil – nostrils flaring in distaste at the invasion to his space. “I think you’re a lying nutter and a Freak.” And she’s horrified at the idea that he might not be lying. Because that means that the Freak can find himself a boyfriend and she can’t even manage to keep up a relationship on the side of Anderson’s bloody _marriage_. It isn’t fair and she lashes out at him and the glimmer of smug knowing he’s pulling around him like a cloak and gets off the elevator before he gets a chance to respond.

Mostly though, she wonders what sort of person this ‘John’ fellow is to have caught _his_ attention.


	4. Anderson

“A boyfriend?” Sally nods at his question and he scrubs a hand across his face. “Christ, I don’t want to even think about him.”

“He’s got to be a complete psychopath,” she mutters. “Can you imagine? Putting up with the Freak _all the time_.”

“I can barely stand him in the same building, let alone share…well, you know.”

She scrunches up her face and takes an especially large gulp of the disgusting Yard coffee. It’s bitter and slimy and still manages to be full of grit but full of caffeine, as Anderson knows from his own mug – abandoned on the counter now.

“So where’s he been hiding him anyway?”

She shrugs one shoulder and sips the coffee again. “Army, apparently. I heard him say something about being home in a month anyway and they were talking about that triple last month so…” she pales abruptly. “God, we’ll meet him soon, won’t we?”

“What?” His mind blanks. “Why?”

“Well Freak’ll hardly let it lie now that he knows it disturbs us,” she reasons before pressing her lips into a tight line. “I hope he doesn’t bring him to a crime scene. Imagine two Freaks?”

He actually does shudder that time.

Somehow he forgets about the conversation he had with Sally and so he doesn’t remember why he’s supposed to be on guard around Sherlock Holmes when he arrives at the scene the next night. All he knows is that he’s furious and annoyed.

He’s the one who went to school specifically for forensic science. He’s the one who has to wade through every scene – no matter how boring – to find those tiny pieces of evidence and then take them back to the lab and spend _hours_ processing it all. Then he hands it all over to Sally and she goes over it with the DI and _maybe_ they’ll get something out of it.

Sherlock Holmes walks into a scene, sniffs imperiously, and declares that it’s too boring and then skulks off like a great giant bat in his ridiculous coat. Else, he walks in and demands everyone leave immediately so he can examine the evidence they’re contaminating.

They’re contaminating. _They_ are contaminating. _He’s_ the one wearing the stupid blue suit with the little footies. _He’s_ the one who’s been there since midnight when his shift started. _He’s_ the one who spent hours at the last three crime scenes scouring the place for even a _hint_ as to what caused the identical suicides.

When Sherlock sweeps out after a few minutes with his eyes glued to his phone, Anderson has a brief moment of hope that perhaps Holmes has decided the entire thing was too boring. It’s horrible of him (because the Consulting Detective does solve every case he sets his mind to) but he can’t help it.

Then he sees Sally at the edge of the police line and she’s got her back ram-rod straight and staring directly at Sherlock and…oh god, is that his _boyfriend_?


	5. John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which John returns from Afghanistan.

When the plane ( _aeroplane, John, honestly,_ says Sherlock in his mind) lands in London, John Watson is very eager to be off. He’s been desperate to see his Sherlock for the entire year he’s been deployed and wants to be out of the damn crowded airport _now_.

“Doctor Watson,” a pretty young woman with her nose glued to a blackberry appears at his elbow with a smartly dressed driver in tow. The driver smiles and takes his bag despite his protests. “If you’ll come with me?”

“Are you still Minerva?” he asks instead, stuffing his hands into his pockets awkwardly around the cane – which he has decidedly not mentioned to Sherlock. Sherlock always has a second pair of gloves he offers if he thinks John’s cold. The thought of his partner makes John refuse the mittens the young woman offers a moment later.

“Anthea,” she says instead, looking up and smiling distractedly. “Sherlock is at a crime scene now. I’m to take you there.”

“Oh?” Of course Sherlock wouldn’t agree to solve things for his brother if John wasn’t there to mediate. He can’t imagine New Scotland Yard working well with his detective either. He knows Sherlock hasn’t gone back to drugs though, because he’d been sulking in the most epic manner possible the last time he saw him (albeit on a truly horrible connection over the internet). “He’s getting on well then?”

“His brother thinks so,” she replies with a quirk at the corner of her lips.

He huffs. “Mycroft still thinks kidnapping his brother’s soon-to-be fiancé is a good idea,” he points out. “But I am thankful he hid the – ah,” he scratches his cheek absently, “the leg and the shoulder. And the ring too, I suppose.”

“Not a problem,” she says and ushers him out of the terminal and into the waiting car. “Your effects will be brought to 221B Baker Street and you will be brought to Sherlock.”

He smiles foolishly and his hand thankfully doesn’t tremble when he settles his cane in beside him. The leg’s mostly psychosomatic, Mycroft thinks, as is his intermittent tremble but John will wait to hear Sherlock decide before he believes _Mycroft_.

The flashing lights are a change from the dark rooms and dim monitors of working for Mycroft, and he breathes in the damp London air when he climbs out of the car and limps his way to the edge of the police tape. Anthea murmurs a farewell and the dark car pulls away, leaving him standing awkwardly and waiting. He fingers the little velvet box in his pocket and waits.

Then, fingers flying over the keyboard of his phone, Sherlock emerges from the building and whips around in search of John. He shifts a little and delights in the heated blue-grey stare that settles on him.

“John!” Sherlock announces loudly. A few people turn to stare and John smiles a little, embarrassed at the attention, but mostly he watches the way Sherlock’s eyes linger on his shoulder and the cane. His scowl is almost as epic in proportion to the sulk he pulled last month – when he threatened heroin and smoking again. “You were shot!”

“It’s why I’m home early,” he says and grins fondly at the snort from Sherlock at stating the obvious. “Brought you a present.”

“A present in your pocket; small box – jewellery, perhaps? But I don’t like…oh. He’s done it then? Legal and everything?” Sherlock fishes the box out of John’s pocket and stares at the simple but elegant white-gold band inside. He smiles softly – a rare, genuine expression that he’s careful to only let John see – and puts the band on his left ring finger. “Of course. He’ll probably try to saddle me with a title now, too.”

“I think he’ll wait till the ceremony, at least,” John says. His grip on the cane tightens and he leans forward a little. “I – ah,” he feels himself flush bright red because there’s a crowd of Yarders behind Sherlock, watching them avidly, “I’ve missed you.”

Sherlock’s reaching forward and plucking up his left hand and touching the matching ring there with affection written all over his face. He pulls the hand up and presses a kiss to the ring, just once, then one to his palm, then his wrist and…by now John might as well light his whole head on fire for all the way he’s blushing.


	6. Lestrade

He’d heard the gossip, naturally. He’d even given in and called Sherlock himself. The brat didn’t answer, of course, but he’d swung by the new flat to ask him personally to help with the fourth suicide and cornered him then.

“So you’ve got a bloke then?”

Sherlock’s mouth twisted in distaste. “I’ve got John,” he said as though that explained everything. “We’ve been together for one year and seven months.”

He’d held up his hands in surrender. “Just asking. To each his own and all that rot. You – er – really like him then? That’s why you were so tetchy about that case?”

“Obviously,” he sneered. Pale hands tugged a scarf around his throat and then bundled themselves away in dark leather gloves. “Well? I’ll not go in a car,” he snapped irritably. He turned to a worn in chair and carefully arranged the little union jack pillow there. His eyes were faraway again and Gregory Lestrade had to hold back the portion of his personality that still found puppies adorable and was currently cooing over the worried domestic fluttering the world’s only Consulting Detective was currently exhibiting.

But Sherlock had agreed to come and take a look at the body. Sure, he’d slammed the door in poor Anderson’s face (though Greg can’t say for certain he didn’t find that hysterical) and he’d poked around at his phone and the body and paced restlessly muttering to himself.

Gregory Lestrade was just relieved when he saw the tell-tale signs of Sherlock about to begin a deduction when the man’s phone chimed obnoxiously loud into the room. Sherlock had blinked and peered at the tiny screen and Greg’s sure that he’s going to have to wait for that deduction.

“Sherlock…”

“One moment, Detective Inspector!” Sherlock snaps, striding out of the room and whipping down the stairs. He hurries after him and pauses to catch his breath at the door to the building, staring at the scene before him.

There’s a blonde man with a cane standing by the edge of the tape and he’s got a tiny smile on his face as he waves a little at the rapidly approaching Sherlock. “You were shot!” he hears the consultant shout with a note of actual alarm in his deep voice.

The man grins a little and says something – leaning back just a touch to peer up at the other man. Greg carefully makes his way over and he’s somehow less startled than the small crowd of Yarders watching the pair and practically ignoring the scene of the crime. Sherlock roots around in the man’s pocket and the man – this must be the mysterious John – just smiles fondly at the top of Sherlock’s head.

The little velvet box is a symbol they all recognize and Lestrade lets the smile out this time at the wide-eyed look the glimmer of metal within earns. Sherlock shifts and Greg can’t see his face but he sees the gloves get tugged off and the ring planted firmly on his left ring finger where he pauses to admire it.

John looks beyond Sherlock and sees the crowd they’ve gathered. He looks flustered and it only gets worse when the tallest of the pair picks up his hand and kisses it gently several times all over.

“Sherlock!” he yelps suddenly and the cane rattles to the ground when he’s abruptly gathered up to the genius’s chest and thoroughly snogged right in front of everyone. Greg hears someone wolf-whistle and sees Sherlock slant his mouth with more fervour over the smaller man’s. Then there’s a moment for breath and Greg can’t help but feel his own catch at the look he can see from where he’s standing.

John’s looking up at Sherlock, still bright red and flustered, but his smile is soft and wide and his eyes are full of gentle affection. Sherlock’s got his lips pulled back in an expression he’s shammed before but never been able to pull off that Greg knows of. His blue-grey eyes are bright and roving over John’s face as though he’s a hundred (thousand – million) times better than any crime scene. He sees Sherlock’s lips move again – ‘I love you’ – and then the detective kisses his fiancé again, gently this time, a bare brushing of lips, before whirling back to stride towards Lestrade.

“Let’s go John! Four suicides and a note! It’s Christmas!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have the end of quite possibly the fluffiest thing I've ever written.


End file.
